


That’s What I Call Home

by zenonaa



Series: TogaFuka Week 2020 [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: F/M, references to past abuse, togafukaweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: 'At the back of the drawer, there was a paperback book which Byakuya took out. The front cover, though faded, was legible. Touko squinted.“It’s a piano book,” she said. She fixed her glasses. “By... Anastazja Polanski?”His features hardened.“Yes. My mother,” he stated.'Togami and Fukawa visit Togami's childhood home.
Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya
Series: TogaFuka Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863115
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	That’s What I Call Home

From a distance, the mansion looked like it had been plucked out of a storybook, all cream rectangles with grey-blue roofs topping each one. A bright, clear sky would have helped give a fairytale aura, but the reality of a dull, cloudy sky dampened the scene.

As Touko and Byakuya drew closer, other details bled in that distance had played an illusion with. Once upon a time creamy and well-maintained, brown neglect now streaked bone walls smeared yellow at the bottom. Vines grew up like cracks on a thin sheet of ice, digging their claws in the frequent chips and fissures. The building didn’t have any eyes, but its windows resembled a skull’s sockets. Iron frames bordered their darkness, and the building seemed to watch Touko and Byakuya as they wound their way through leafy plants that had parched straw arms.

Touko glanced away from the building only to supervise her fingers as she carefully pinched the flat sides of a leaf, dragging it away from her body so she could step past without brushing by its jagged edges or spiked stem. Once she passed it, letting the plant swing back to its original positioning, her eyes returned to the building.

Her chest tightened. She felt like an invisible force was trying to draw out the colour and life from outside her mouth, sucking her dry.

“It’s b-big,” she mumbled. The mansion’s oppressive air planted a ghostly hand on her. Pushed down. Made her feel even smaller.

Byakuya looked at the building too. However, he didn’t do so in awe, like her, and didn’t soak in the details with wide eyes, like her. He regarded it with a frown, with narrowed eyes and a wrinkled nose like he was trying to place an unpleasant smell.

“When I lived here, it wasn’t so overgrown,” Byakuya told her. Ragged weeds ran fingers against his trouser leg. Grimacing, he stepped over them. “We had a dozen gardeners tending the gardens.”

Touko caught up to him, wobbling as she chose her steps through wild plants and debris.

“Do you remember the last time you were here?” she asked. He glanced at her.

“I came back home for New Year’s during my first year at Hope’s Peak,” he recalled.

“Ah,” she went. Yes, that was something other people did.

Even the road that used to lead up the gates had been worn down, smashed up and strangled by untamed nature. The pair worked their way to the front gates, which were caked in moss and rust. Rather than fencing, stone walls flanked either side of the gates, wrapping around the perimeter of the grounds.

Fortunately, the gates were ajar, not locked, but when Byakuya tried to budge them open, the gates stiffened and squared up against him. He pushed harder. She did too.

Together, they shunted the gates just enough that Touko and Byakuya could squeeze through the gap. Byakuya went first and Touko popped out seconds later.

Touko hunched her shoulders and walked alongside Byakuya as they trod along the chewed up pathway to the front door. She tried to imagine what the place might have looked like before all this... before. The gardens definitely wouldn’t have been overgrown, as tangled as her hair used to be until she thought to tie them into braids. Also, one would have been able to tell what was a flowerbed and what was regularly mown grass in the time before, and the stone fountain they passed would have been gushing water, not dry as bone.

And trash definitely wouldn’t have been scattered amongst the grass like this, like at her childhood home. This place would have been picturesque. Like something from a brochure.

They reached the front door. She peeked over her shoulder. No bugs chirped. No birds sang. No animals made any noise. When she gulped, the sound exploded between her ears.

“Did you ever have any pets?” she asked.

“No,” he said. She fiddled with her glasses.

“It’s so quiet,” Touko noted before turning to Byakuya. “Do you think we’ll find anyone in there? Any animals?”

He tugged on the dull golden handles of the front door. Nothing. The lion door knocker, with its permanently furrowed brow, seemed to judge them.

“I doubt we’ll find anyone who has permission to be here,” he said. “Not alive, at least.”

Byakuya throttled the handles. She watched him.

Still no luck with the door. Touko’s lips contorted in thought, and she scanned the surrounding area.

“I don’t suppose there’s a key under a flowerpot nearby,” she muttered, wringing her fingers.

“I doubt it,” Byakuya replied. He gave the handles another pull, which ended up just as fruitless as the attempt before, and sighed. “I suppose we will have to knock it down.”

Touko twitched her head back.

“K-Knock it down?” she spluttered. “I don’t know if I could do something like that to your childhood home...”

Yes, the place was falling apart, but it used to be Byakuya’s home. His. Home. Where he lived. Such an act of desecration might summon a freak flash of lightning to where she stood.

Byakuya raised his eyebrows.

“No? Not even with my permission?” he asked, and he clicked his tongue. “Please, Fukawa. I’m not going to be annoyed if you break it. In fact, I would rather you did, so I - ”

He was interrupted with a loud thunk as Touko rammed into the door shoulder-first. The door remained intact. Touko ricocheted off and fell over, but also remained intact.

His face appeared over her.

“... Let’s investigate the windows,” he finished, deadpan.

Most of the windows were shattered, and the duo didn’t take long to stumble upon an opening with just a few shards of glass attached to the frame. Byakuya took off his jacket and lay it across the remnants of a pane. He pressed his hand down against his jacket, cautious at first, then once sure that no one would be able to cut themselves on it now, he turned to Touko.

“You go in first,” he said.

Her lips shriveled with displeasure as she peered into the building’s unlit socket.

“I-It’s dark,” she remarked, shivering. He followed her gaze.

“It is, isn’t it?” agreed Byakuya in a light tone. “But I know you can do it. You’re someone I can depend on, after all.”

Touko turned to him. Byakuya gave a small smile, showing no teeth. It had the desired effect. Her entire self set aglow.

“I am!” she promised, raising her fists, and she positioned herself by the window. She saw movement in the corner of her vision as Byakuya shifted, but she kept her eyes forward.

Byakuya had entrusted her with this mission. Touko clenched her fists and was about to climb through when his voice distracted her.

“Here,” he said, and with his implicit permission given by that solitary word, she let herself look at him.

Her heart skipped a beat.

There he was, Byakuya Togami, down on one knee beside her, blasting his sky blue eyes at her. Waiting. Waiting for her answer. Touko could hear wedding bells already. Though maybe it was the shock of this actually happening ringing between her ears. A grin almost splintered her face.

“I... I do!” she gushed.

However, unlike her fantasies, Byakuya didn’t proffer a ring. Instead, he had laced his fingers together, creating a small platform for her to step on.

“What?” He squinted then shook his head. “Focus, Fukawa. I’m giving you a leg-up. Turn the light on your phone on and get inside.”

Just like that, her heart sank, but she nodded and said, “I’m on it.”

Another day then. The fluttery feeling in her chest transformed from a flicker of disappointment into the fire of determination. Being with him regardless was more than enough.

Touko inhaled shakily, switched on the torch on her phone and then stepped onto his hands. He hoisted her up, and once her knees were on his jacket, he moved his hands either side of her hips for extra support. Her face burned.

In another place, such as a bedroom, this position would have been perfect, him behind her with her on all fours. Byakuya firmly pushed Touko and she crawled through the window, leaving his grasp, and touched down on the other side.

Glass crunched underfoot. She froze. Hugged herself. It was dark. Very dark.

Fortunately, the floor didn’t swallow her up. Neither did the darkness or the musty stench. Light poured in from behind her, kissing a spotlight around her that highlighted the broken glass. The further her gaze drifted away from her pocket of light, the harder it became to distinguish shadow from object. Touko could just make out two pillars with some floorboards ripped up by one of them, and across the room, an armchair blurred. Other forms lurked, but she couldn’t distinguish their outlines and what they resembled, assuming they even existed.

She was still surveying her surroundings when Byakuya climbed in, glass squelching under his weight. A ball of light bloomed beside her that made her jump. Next to her, Byakuya had switched the torch function of his phone on. Even though now she knew what it was, her skin continued to prickle, and her heart thrashed like it was trying not to drown.

When her nerves calmed a bit, she followed his example and aimed her phone in front of them to unveil more of the room. If she was to guess, she would say this had been a drawing room. Heaps of refuse layered the floor. Splinters, inedible food, fabric and metal cans melded together into a sludge. The pair had barely stirred since entering, yet they already threw up clouds of dust. Touko coughed into her elbow and reached into her satchel, taking out a dust mask. Byakuya did the same.

“Do you have any memories of this room?” she asked, muffled.

“My mother received guests here,” replied Byakuya. “It was only for formal affairs.”

His last word shocked her. Spiked a chill in her slender frame before she realised which meaning he referred to. Not the definition that applied to her parents. Even after realising, she still felt on edge.

Thinking about her parents hadn’t got easier after all this time.

“R-Right,” she said. She fumbled with her phone. Tried to distract herself. “I imagine this room used to be more colourful.”

The opposite to her childhood home.

“Yes,” he said in a vague, uninterested tone.

Not only that, but the walls wouldn’t have been punctured and peeling. Their walls would have gleamed as white as the teeth of her first high school’s head teacher, instead of stained and tainted like his heart. Lampshades would have been beaming, not broken and their pieces strewn around the room. Perhaps the torn up rags had been tapestries displaying scenes she could have made up stories about, or cushions belonging to the couch’s corpse. The fireplace would have been alive, not a hollow, ashy bricked crevice with trash inside.

“I don’t think there is anything for us here,” he said, motioning to her. “Let’s proceed.”

They trudged over to the doorway on the other side of the room. At their feet lay the remains of the door, a battered mess flexing splinters. The floor in the corridor was unlevel - boards had been broken and they stuck out at various angles, creating rifts one could trap their legs in, and between the jagged wooden teeth was a rubble tongue. Every step made the floor groan in pain, a pathetic, creaking rasp. Touko made sure not to fall into the rubble and be eaten alive as she trekked after Byakuya.

Either side of her were doors in different states of demolition. Byakuya didn’t walk quickly, but he didn’t slow his pace, so Touko only caught a few glimpses of each room before she passed by. Each one had been ravaged, gnawed and regurgitated. Some she could scarcely see into, their windows boarded with planks so she had to depend solely on the limited range of her phone. In those fleeting looks, she spotted hacked up messes that resembled porcupines and walls streaked in permanent screams.

Halfway down the corridor, they reached a doorway that made her retch. Made her muscles seize up. She had smelled it before. Smelled it in Hope’s Peak. In Towa City. In alien alleyways. It was even stronger than the room they entered the building through.

That smell of decay. Rot. Death.

Even though she had been confronted with such a stench before, she had never got used to it. And she had experienced it many, many times by now.

Byakuya stopped too and shone his torch into that room. When he did, she turned her back on it and heard him take a few steps toward it. Touko peeked and noticed he didn’t go past the doorway. She inched closer to him. Couldn’t see his face. Taking a deep breath, she turned back and peered in. Snaked her arm around his arm. He didn’t pull away.

The dining room had become a cemetery. Skeletons lay sprawled amongst the trash, and a harsh buzzing sound grated her ears. Flies. Or static only she could hear. Or both. Though Touko had forcibly become rather accustomed to dead bodies, she hadn’t been near so many at such a late stage of decomposition. Her eyes watered as rot and mould and blood reeked.

“I-Is...?” Touko choked out. She dug her fingers into him. “Is your... mother...?”

“I doubt my mother is one of those,” said Byakuya calmly. He shifted a foot back and turned away from the door, meaning Touko had to release his arm. “These used to be staff, probably. She would have stowed herself away somewhere else... like the basement, if she even stayed at this place. But that’s not why we’re here.”

“S-So… where should we check first?” she asked hesitantly.

“Scavengers will have purloined almost everything useful or worth anything,” Byakuya said. He pushed up his glasses. Stared down the corridor. “Our objective remains unchanged. We will see if the safe in my mother’s room is there. Though there’s a chance that it has already been claimed by someone else, we may as well investigate.”

Byakuya said it so casually despite the fact they flew out all the way to Poland just to explore this mansion. Touko didn’t point this out to him, and when he started walking again, she fell into stride behind him. Their footsteps made conversation for a while.

“What do you think happened to your mother?” she then asked.

“I can’t say. She could have escaped, I suppose,” he replied, still betraying no emotion. “She was a strong, resourceful woman. Now, Fukawa, stay on your guard. Even though a lot of the valuables will be gone by now, we don’t know who or what else is here. It may be something in need of our assistance, but it could be something sinister.”

Touko hummed and bobbed her head in acknowledgement, her insides quivering and restless. Byakuya delved his hand into his belt and retrieved his hacker phone. This one was significantly shorter than his other models, the size of a handgun but still shaped like a megaphone.

“Have your electroshock weapon ready,” he instructed. She withdrew it from her satchel. Squeezed it.

In the next corridor, they came across a double set of doors that opened up into what Touko guessed to be an entrance hall, with decor matching the regal interior hinted at in what she had seen of the mansion so far. Two staircases, distanced at the bottom, diverged then converged in a curve at the top, leading to the next floor up.

“It m-must be so disconcerting to see this place like this,” she said. She imagined staff running up and down the stairs. Guests being welcomed into the building, having their coats taken before being ushered into other rooms. “How often did you have visitors, before? Did you have friends over often, Byakuya-sama?”

“Of course not,” he said. He walked over to the bottom of the stairs and she followed. The handrails were coated in grime. “I never had an interest in friends. In my spare time, I studied. The only guests I ever had over were friends of my father wanting to scope me out.”

“Ah,” went Touko, twiddling her electroshock weapon. She looked away. “I never had friends over either...”

Because she never had any as a child.

They crept up the staircase. Touko hardly dared breathe, half-expecting her next step to send her foot through the creaking, deformed stair. She focused on her footwork.

One step, she survived.

Two steps, she survived.

Three steps -

survived.

Each time her foot set down, the stairs croaked and sent a shiver through her. She used her arms for balance in favour of the handrails, which were too filthy even for her. In her first home, she would run her hands along surfaces like that without a second thought. Eat off them. Not like she had any other choice. But after being away from a place like that for so long and facing something similar again, she regarded her surroundings with nausea.

Perhaps it wasn’t because she was no longer used to it. Perhaps it was because they still reminded her of her first home.

Of that part of her life.

The two made it to the top. They paused, listened. Nothing. Or something was hiding. Spying. Waiting.

Soon after Byakuya resumed moving, Touko sprung into motion. They entered a corridor together. Its blue marble pillars had been clawed at, and the purple carpet laid out was worn down and dirty. Where the carpet didn’t cover, the flooring was scuffed and grim.

Byakuya opened one door. The first thing that Touko’s eyes latched onto was a nest made from a bedframe with a thin, deformed mattress resting on it, which indicated to Touko that this had been a bedroom. Above the former bed hung remnants of a curtain that might have been pink, now a soiled brown. Hardly any wallpaper remained attached to the decaying wooden walls. Touko’s gaze wandered over to a piano that she didn’t know if it would still work, then she soon spotted ashy, black lumps nearby.

Her stomach clenched. They didn’t seem like chunks of flesh. Byakuya adjusted his glasses, eyes narrowed.

“There doesn’t seem to be any bodies in here. Fukawa, check this room for the safe or anything that seems important,” he said. He held his hacker phone higher. “I will inspect other rooms on this floor.”

Touko worried her thumb nail with her teeth. “A-Are you sure...?”

“We’ll only be separated for a few minutes,” he assured her, but that didn’t help settle her stomach. She took her thumb away from her mouth and chewed on her lip.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, thrilling her nerves.

“I want to check some things out in the meantime,” he said to her. “Remember, no matter the distance...”

“... I won’t feel a thing,” she finished. She drew in a deep breath and when she exhaled, felt her nerves rattle more in her body, becoming less tense after. Squaring her shoulders, she said, “O-Okay, Byakuya-sama.”

“I know you will be fine,” he said. He squeezed her shoulder. “That’s why... out of everyone, I brought you with me. Just you. I can depend on you.”

Touko perked up, this time genuinely. Her face warmed, and she chirped, “I won’t let you down, Byakuya-sama!”

Yes, she still felt anxious. They were in an abandoned mansion with dead bodies in it, but rather than hinder her, that nervous feeling became a nervous energy, like wind pushing her forward.

Byakuya rewarded her with a quick pat on the shoulder before leaving the room, keeping the door open behind him. Touko shuffled further into the room. When she drew close enough to the black lumps, she deduced that someone had tried to start a fire in here with them. She dropped into a crouch and sifted her fingers through it. Definitely not flesh. Probably burnt furniture, bed curtain and wallpaper.

Touching them left a black film on her fingers. Touko dusted her hands on her thighs and examined the mattress. Surprisingly, the bedsheet clinging to it was in one piece still, and its folds reminded her of veins in an arm.

She checked under the bed next. Its planks had come out of place, now looking like two hands with the fingers laced together. Cobwebs darted between the bottom of the bed and the sea of refuse there. The safe could have been somewhere in there, she supposed, but she decided to search the rest of the room first and began waddling through the trash on the floor.

If the safe was in here, it ought to have been somewhere hidden. Touko tried the closet, finding it full of junk, and then noticed a drawer unit by the bed, missing one drawer while the one above it was still in there but had no handle anymore. She couldn’t see any other way to open it, which suggested that maybe no one had accessed it for some time, so she reached into the holster on her leg and unsheathed an enormous pair of scissors.

Her teeth gritted together, so hard her jaw ached, as she tried to pry it open with her scissors. Part of Touko expected the scissors to bend or snap first, despite them being made from metal.

After a minute, the sweat sticking to her hands caused her fingers to slip on the scissor loops. That she struggled to open the drawer suggested whatever was inside, if anything, was likely to still be there, but the fact it wouldn’t open frustrated her like hell. Touko grunted and jabbed the scissors against the front of her drawer instead. To her surprise, the scissors embedded into the drawer. Her eyebrows rose, and she jiggled the scissors, pulling at the same time, until the drawer gave way just a tad.

This time, when she tried to pry the drawer open with her scissors, with enough force, it complied. The drawer refused to open much wider, but it still offered enough of a gap for Touko to slide her hand into.

Anything could have been in there. A trap. Bugs. Something broken. Something sharp. Cobwebs caught on her fingers. Touko took her hand out and dipped her phone into the gap, using the flash on her phone’s camera as she took a photo of the inside of the drawer. Her phone managed to capture an image of what appeared to be a blank sheet, but something else could have been prowling there. Hidden out of sight.

Knowing this, she still reached her hand in, felt around, and when her fingers stuttered across something, she struggled until she whipped it out.

It was a photograph. Somehow, unscathed. Intelligible. Two figures stood in it, a woman and a man. Touko identified the man immediately as Byakuya’s butler, Aloysius Pennyworth, albeit younger than when she first met him, then she turned her attention to the woman. Her blonde hair had been gathered into a bun behind her head, and her sky blue eyes stared at the photographer beneath thick eyebrows that gave her a permanently stern look. The fact the woman’s mouth curved downward at the ends only added to her demeanour. She wore a navy dress that reached the floor, and in her arms, she cradled a baby.

Touko’s lips parted.

“Byakuya-sama,” she murmured to herself, and she lurched to her feet. Then she hurried out of the room, back into the corridor, taking the photograph with her.

She looked both ways. No movement either end. All she could hear was her panting.

This time, she said his name louder, and not just to herself. “Byakuya-sama?”

Still nothing. Her legs shook.

“Byakuya-sama!” she shouted.

Within seconds, a door burst open. Touko jerked her hand, bringing her electroshock weapon to her neck. Byakuya stumbled out of the room.

“Fukawa?” he blurted, holding his hacker phone with both hands. Aiming it forward. At her. “What is it? Are you hurt?”

An inopportune smile slipped out of Touko, not that he could see it through her dust mask. She quickly remembered what she had found and recollected herself together, coming over to him in an awkward half-walk, half-jog.

“I found this,” she told him, showing him the photograph. “Is this...?”

“My mother?” he said. “Yes. It is.”

And that must have been Byakuya in her arms, like Touko suspected. Despite how serious and mature his mother appeared in the photograph, she could only have been a few years older than they were now, at most.

Touko looked up first. Byakuya’s brow was creased, and his eyes were moving around, studying the picture quickly. Very quickly. Like a fly trapped in a glass jar. Sort of like he looked toward it, but didn’t see it. She swallowed.

“Byakuya-sama?” she said quietly. “Is something wrong?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then he spoke.

“Perhaps, if you found this, there may be more photographs in my mother’s room,” he mused, a calm tone glazing his voice. “Did you find the safe in there by chance?”

“N-No,” she admitted, hunching her shoulders. “I haven’t, but maybe there’s a secret compartment that you know about and it’s in there.”

“Let’s go back together then,” he said, and without waiting for her reply, he started for what used to be Byakuya’s mother’s room.

Touko flitted after him and fell into stride beside him. His eyes were trained forward intensely, and when she looked down, she realised Byakuya was holding something he had not been holding before they split up.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

She was sure he cringed before he stopped walking. He slowly raised his hand and showed it to her.

It was a dirty tennis ball with a pencil embedded in it.

“This...?” he said, glancing away. “Oh, it’s trash.”

That he kept. Took with him. Touko cocked her head to one side.

“It looks like a toy,” she said. A magic wand, or perhaps even a person. She peered up at him and couldn’t help smiling at the idea of a small Byakuya waving it about. “I wonder... Byakuya-sama, could it be that it used to be yours?”

Byakuya flinched with a noise catching in the back of his throat, giving himself away.

“You’re too observant,” he said, his brow knitted, then he reluctantly added, “Yes. When I was younger, I didn’t have toys because my mother wanted me to focus on my studies, so I made this. I hid it under my bed because I knew my mother would demand it be thrown away if she knew about it. To anyone else, it would have looked like trash, so I’m not surprised that no one stole it.”

Now that she had studied it more, she could discern what appeared to be black markings smothered by the coat of dust and dirt. When she reached her hand toward it, he didn’t hold it away from her, but his shoulders gave a defensive jut up. She gently scraped her thumb across the ball, treating it like it was treasure, and uncovered what she believed to be a smudged, crudely drawn eye.

“I used to make paper dolls,” she told him. Even now, she could remember their names, and nostalgia hurt her heart. “My parents wouldn’t buy me toys either, and most things I owned either ended up being broken or sold so my parents could buy something for themselves with the money. Sometimes, I used trash or broken toys to substitute for real toys too.”

His features clouded in thought. Silence sprinkled between them, but already Touko could feel it wasn’t going to stick. He turned to her.

“Earlier, you asked me if I ever had a pet and I told you I didn’t,” he said. He hesitated. Decided to elaborate. “I once found a dog and tried to hide him in my room. My mother found out after I kept telling Pennyworth to bring him food, and she forced me to set the dog free.”

Byakuya turned his gaze to the end of the corridor, where nothing was happening. Most people would assume that someone like Byakuya, brought up in an incredibly wealthy family, would have been able to have whatever he wanted, yet he couldn’t even have pets or a toy growing up. Maybe it was because it hadn’t really been a family. Touko rolled her electroshock weapon in her hands.

“I’ve only ever had a stink bug, and she’s more of a friend than a pet,” she said.

“I see,” he replied, distracted. She didn’t know by what though. His eyes flickered, and he puffed out his chest, straightening. Bravado slipped back into his tone. “We should continue searching this place. Let’s go.”

Their footsteps barked as they walked down the corridor. Byakuya led them to his mother’s room. Touko showed him the bedside drawer where she found the first photograph and when he held out his hand, she shakily gave him hers.

He glowered. “Not your hand. Your scissors.”

“Oh!” she squeaked, her face burning. She passed them to him. He wedged them into the drawer and forced it wider open. It squawked, then he put his fingers in and wrenched it enough that they could now see inside the drawer.

Not that there was much to see. Dust and bugs, mostly. Some alive. Some dead. At the back, there was a paperback book which Byakuya took out. The front cover, though faded, was legible. Touko squinted.

“It’s a piano book,” she said. She fixed her glasses. “By... Anastazja Polanski?”

His features hardened.

“Yes. My mother,” he stated. “She composed several pieces for the piano.”

Touko placed her hand over her heart but said nothing. Byakuya rubbed his dirty hands against his thighs before striding over to the piano that Touko had almost forgotten existed. He rested his hand against the fallboard and didn’t move again, standing with his back to her. She lingered some distance behind him, still near the drawers by the bed.

So far, they had found a tennis ball with a pencil in it, a photograph and an old piano book. They were better than nothing, but if they located the safe, which Byakuya claimed to be the reason for their coming here, then that would put him in a good mood. That would cheer him up.

“Did your mother have a walk-in wardrobe, or a trapdoor?” suggested Touko.

Byakuya didn’t stir. Touko tensed. Since they had reunited in the corridor, he had been acting... off. Other people might not have noticed, dismissing him as being his normal sour self, but she knew him well enough to notice.

“Byakuya-sama?” she asked. Nothing. She cautiously took a few steps toward him, but didn’t close the gap between them. “Are... you all right? When I asked you that in the hall, you didn’t answer me then either...”

He let out a low chuckle but stayed facing the piano. His laugh wasn’t loud, but it still made her recoil. The sound wasn’t a gift like it usually was, didn’t strum her heartstrings, but made her go cold.

“Not much gets by you, does it?” he asked. She could hear his forced smile in his voice. Though he raised his head, he didn’t turn around to face her.

Touko waited, hugging herself. Her throat was clenched too tight for her to say anything, anyway. Byakuya spoke again.

“I found my mother,” he said plainly.

That wasn’t what she expected him to say. She yelped.

“W-Wh...?” she went, ogling the back of his head.

“In my room. Across the bed.”

Tingling spread from the depths of her stomach. This must have happened during their brief separation. Had he seen her body, then continued searching that room? Or had he stood by her remains, staring down, entranced until Touko’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts?

“How do you k-know it’s her?” Touko asked, wide-eyed.

“I recognised the dress. She had her wedding ring in her fist,” he said. He brought a hand to his glasses and after he pushed them up, he didn’t take his hand away. His other hand stayed on the piano. “It doesn’t matter, all right? I just... know. It’s not usually in my character to go off evidence like this, or a lack of, but I... I know it’s her.”

“Maybe we could do a DNA test, maybe - ” Touko stopped. Byakuya glared at her, the hand that had just been touching his glasses now hovering in front of him.

However, he could only manage a couple of seconds before he faced the piano again and hunched his shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said thickly. His hand still on the piano balled into a fist, and his knuckles drained of colour. He drawled, “If it’s her. If she’s dead. It doesn’t matter. Why should it? It’s not like I knew her that much. She was usually busy with other things, and I was busy too, becoming the future head of the conglomerate. My creation was a business investment, to continue the conglomerate and follow tradition. We weren’t like... a family.”

Touko’s heart weighed her down as she dragged her feet over to Byakuya. As much as she threatened to sink into the floor, she persevered.

“Why do you think she was in your old room?” she asked him quietly.

“Someone chased her there,” he said in monotone. She deliberated, then set her hand onto his shoulder and tilted her head.

“Your mother might have known she was going to die, so she went to the place she associated with you most,” suggested Touko. Byakuya stiffened. Her words seeped in. 

Then he stared at her. His face contorted.

“How would you know that?” he snapped, making her jolt. “You didn’t know her!”

Without thinking, she retorted, “You just said you didn’t either.”

Her brain caught up with the present and rocked her body. They winced at the same time.

“S-Sorry,” she stammered, screaming internally. “I...!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said in a flat tone. “You’re right. I did say that.”

A knot tightly coiled in Touko’s stomach. She shuddered, then wrapped her arms around her middle, clinging to herself.

“Unlike you, w-who was planned, I was a mistake. A regret,” she said, and she gripped herself harder, still feeling like her heart was teetering on a tightrope. In her head, the wallpaper peeled, revealing the grotesque faces of her past. “My mothers saw me as a leash keeping them to my father. They would take their anger out on me. Shove me. Starve me. Call me names.”

Touko feigned interest in the floor. She had as much interest in it as her mothers had in her before she became famous. As for her father, she didn’t like to think about how much interest he had in her. He had too much. Her toes curled in her shoes, and she trembled.

“My mothers refused to find out who was really my mother,” she went on, hushed. “O-One would be forced to stay, and the other would realise she wasted her life staying here when she didn’t have to… and then she’d have to stay, anyway, because she had nothing, no one else.”

Still shaking, she met his gaze. He stared at her, his eyebrows slightly arched, and she cringed.

“S-Sorry! I spoke out of turn again!” she apologised. Her elbows tucked into her sides. Her thighs clamped together. Hands pressed together in prayer. “P-Please, shove my face into the carpet a-and pummel my behind with your...”

“Shut up,” he said with no venom. In fact, one could have used the adverb ‘softly’ for how he spoke to her. 

Still, it was enough to root her back into reality. Around her, the room stopped fading away and became solid again, cobwebs and all, and the ghosts of certain memories evaporated. His face took their place.

Most people wouldn’t be calmed by someone telling them to shut up, but with Byakuya, his voice struck a match against her heartstrings. Phantom fingers burned to a crisp. He wasn’t a shadow, or a trick of the light, or the fine print at the bottom of a contract, and she knew he would never take her up on the punishments she asked for. His presence could not only excite her, but calm her too.

The flash of annoyance in his eyes came and went, leaving his gaze dull.

“You know, I used to think you were delusional,” he said, looking away, his brow creased. “You were always saying how we were going to get married, or how everyone hated you... but you’ve always been able to see people for what they are, better than I could ever. You see the world in all its corrupted, twisted glory... but you can also envision an ideal world too.”

Byakuya ran his finger across the top of the piano, even though it was fuzzy with dust. She breathed. Felt her chest swell. Oh, how she longed to pepper him in kisses. To feel him between her arms, and her between his, but she didn’t know if either could withstand that right now. Could do that and not crumple. He took his glasses off and wiped them against his sleeve before popping them back on. His gaze remained averted.

“Growing up, I kept people at an arm’s length,” he recalled, stiff and expressionless. The dust mask didn’t help her in reading his face. “I couldn’t trust anyone. Anyone could be waiting to use our relationship against me. Waiting for blackmail material, or an opening.”

Touko could understand. She had pushed people away too, to survive. While for Byakuya, he had become cold, frosty, icy as a result of the pressure of his upbringing, she had reached a boiling point, became too hot to handle, and that had created Genocider Syo, a murderous alter that turned her personality dark, that she had to hide in case she fronted and killed again. Both lashed out. Both were in pain, and she wondered if his heart ached too.

“I only met my father a handful of times, you know,” said Byakuya, drawing her out of her thoughts. He still had a metaphorical mask crusted over his features. Still controlled his tone. “He didn’t meet me in person until I was the last one standing out of all my siblings. I addressed him as ‘Togami-sama’. He took me under his wing and tried to make me just like him, uncaring and ruthless. It could have worked. After all, that was how I had survived until then...”

While Byakuya tried to force himself not to feel, leaving him out of touch with his emotions, Touko felt too much, and when she tried to dissociate from her feelings, it created Syo.

“Maybe your mother didn’t want to get close to you because she didn’t want to form a connection with you,” said Touko in a small voice. “Maybe that’s how she tried to survive.”

As for Touko, her mothers only gained interest in her when she got into writing. Earned money that they seized from her. Much like with her, people only became interested in Byakuya once he became Byakuya Togami, heir to the Togami conglomerate.

Byakuya nodded slowly. Both were at a loss for words. Silence nibbled at them. Touko spotted the piano book, which he had propped against the piano. 

“Do you remember any of your mother's songs?” she asked.

“I remember her playing some, but she never performed for me specifically,” he replied. He picked up the piano book and flicked through it, then backtracked a few pages. “This one... I remember overhearing her play it when I was little. It’s one of the only times I ever heard her sing.”

She chanced it.

“Could you play it to me now?” she said. “That song you remember your mother singing.”

He quirked his brow.

“I doubt the piano is in tune,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she told him.

Byakuya stared at her for several more seconds before positioning the piano book onto the chipped rack and opening the fallboard. The piano cawed as he pressed one of the keys. It sounded distorted. Nevertheless, he started playing, with Touko reading over his shoulder, and when he reached the part where the lyrics came in, she half-spoke, half-sang them.

“Where poppies stare from the hillside   
Where roses cling like soap foam   
Where tulips wave in the wind, for me   
That’s what I call home.”

He glanced at her. His brows pulled in, and to her surprise, when the next verse started, he joined her quietly, speaking with a lilt, almost singing,

“Where the sky blushes sunrise, sunset   
Where the wind caresses my face   
Where the grass sways and dances, for me   
Home is what I call that place.”

Rays of light slung across the room through the boarded window, staining orange stripes onto the rubbish. Dust particles twirled in the air, performing for no one.

“Where the shadows are familiar friends   
Where every creak is understood   
Where sunlight pays visits, for me   
A home like that is good.”

She snuck a look at his face. Would never reveal what she saw to anyone else.

“Where our footsteps and heartbeat are one   
Even if you can only sense your own   
So long as you and I are together, for me   
That’s what I call home.”

The music dwindled, then ended. Byakuya stayed as he was, and when Touko gingerly put her hand over his, he didn’t pull away. His shoulders shook, and his mask finally fell off. She squeezed his hand and he leaned his head against her arm. For a long time, neither said anything in that dusty room in that dusty mansion.


End file.
